SAINT-WORSHIP ATTACKS HOW WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ALL FOR GOD
Jesus said God is by definition the only thing that matters and morality is at its foundation all about recognising this and living for him in love. People ignore that command and church systems give lip service to it. Thus they have idols, mother, father, the children etc. The idolatry is more obvious when the idols are dead people!
According to Roman Catholic theology, a saint is a person who has lived an
unusually holy life and who has gone straight to Heaven at his or her death. The
pope decrees that a person is a saint after the Church has “thoroughly”
investigated her or his life and the miracles done though her or his
intercession. No one can be canonised without having done some miracles. God, it
is supposed, does miracles in response to the invocation of the person’s
intercession in order to show the Church that he or she is a saint.
Catholics pray to saints so that they will ask God to bless them on their
behalf. As there are people in Heaven who were in Purgatory first why does
the Church put so much work into making saints of those who end up in Heaven the
second they die?
The reason is that it is not just about giving the Church somebody to pray to but giving them an example of Catholic faith. Strictly speaking praying for anything is asking for God to help you become worthy of it so to pray to a saint is really asking to become like them to please God.
Praying to saints is a sin unless you are doing it in order to become like God in the way they did. It is all about, "God make me serve you like St Padre Pio." But if you were doing that you would find a saint who would fit in in your life. A housewife asking to be like Padre Pio only makes sense if she is a monk with stigmata!
In reality, the Church knows that people want saints for they think they can persuade God to help for otherwise he will not bother or will not help in the right way.
So it's about getting favours.
Is this practice rational? Does it fit into the doctrine that God is perfect
love and infinite might like a glove or does it crush it?
Intercession means asking a being to help who is not interested in helping. It’s
changing his mind.
Praying to the saints for their intercession is telling God that he is imperfect
and they are better than what he is.
Does praying to the saints imply that God will not do his own will - his will is
to help our wellbeing spiritual and otherwise - and needs them to persuade him
to do it?
Catholics do not like the thought of a God they have to submit to so they devote
themselves to the saints. They claim the saints pray for them and that means
that they are really praying indirectly to God. The hope is that the saint
will get the benefit and do the submitting so they can get the favour and then
hand it on to you. It is about laziness and even trying to trick God. If God
gives St Agnes a gift and she takes it while planning to give it to somebody God
would not give it to then you see what is happening.
Catholics simply ignore all this and then dish up reasons for praying to saints.
But there is no point in even reading them because intercession of saints denies
the goodness of God and it is as simple as that. Saints praying to God for us is
incoherent and no argument can save it.
Catholics choose one or more reasons out of six to pray to saints and not one of
them is sensible and fails to offer an indignity to the Almighty.
* Reason One. This seems to be the most theologically acceptable and decent
reason because it looks as if praying to a saint doesn’t necessarily deny that
God is all-merciful and all-good and all-knowing and the only person you need.
It holds that just as you may ask others to pray for you so you may ask the
saints and angels and this is not praying to them but praying to God through
them. In this theology you don’t say “Holy Mary Mother of God I pray to you” but
“Holy Mary Mother of God pray for me” or “Holy Mary Mother of God I pray through
you to God. That is, you take my prayer and take it to God for me.” This would
be like sending Johnny a text message but you sending it to Mark so that he can
do it for you so you are talking to Johnny through Mark. It doesn’t look at all
sensible and implies that somehow you are afraid to approach Johnny directly. It
implies you are hiding behind Mary. This insults the mercy and the all-knowing
nature of God.
You should ask others to pray for you not because you believe it will help you
but because you believe it will help them to open themselves up to God so that
they can love you better. Prayer is mainly for changing the heart. To ask a
saint to pray for you is to insult the saint for the saint doesn’t need to pray
for you. Also the saint just praises God and though the saint wants God to help
you she or he will leave it between you and God. True reverence will require
that you do not ask them to pray for you. There is no need to read on, praying
to saints puts them before what is right and before God. It attempts to make
idols of them. It is presumptuous to ask a saint to pray for you for how do you
know they can hear you and that they can listen to billions of prayers at once?
They would have to be Gods to do that. If Mary is praying for you but without
knowing much about your circumstances then you should not be praying, “Holy Mary
Mother of God pray for me now and at the hour of my death” but “God hear the
prayers of Mary for me now and at the hour of my death.” I would remember too
that if she is praying for me know it isn’t just me she is praying for. She
would be praying for everybody on earth.
* Reason Two. The Lord is more likely to answer your prayer when you ask a saint
to pray for you because the saint is and was holier than you and deserves God’s
blessings more so he will answer the prayer for the saint’s sake. You might not
get what you want but you will get as good if not better.
Radio Replies says that God loves Mary more than anybody on earth so he will be
more ready to answer the prayers she makes for us when we invoke her
intercession (Vol 1, Question 1410).
This and the previous theory show their errors more plainly when it is seen that
all favours asked of God are ultimately spiritual ones for even gaining temporal
goods will affect you spiritually. God only answers prayer if they will be of
spiritual benefit to you. The theories present a God who encourages us to sin by
withholding the power to resist sin by leaving us without the spiritual benefits
until a saint is invoked. Instead of God they give us Satan. God is not so
concerned about merit after all.
If God answers all prayers in accordance with his promise then the theory is
untrue.
If God answers because a saint deserves it or asked him then this is the main
reason he is doing it and not because it is the best thing to do for you and
everybody. A saint’s merit does not come before what is best on earth. Is God
honouring St Lucy more important than helping a sick baby at the behest of
prayer?
God might only humour the saint when it is for the best but please understand it
is motive that I am worried about here. God has a bad motive for doing good for
he is putting the lesser motive before the better one. This makes the saint
superior to God and able to persuade him to sin.
If God answers any prayer, it must be for the best. But if the saint had not
asked and offered some merits it would not have been answered. So answering was
not for the best after all. God answering prayer for a saint means that God can
evilly do wrong. The saint is actually better than God for at least doing
something for you but just as evil for adoring the monster God as a perfect
being. The saint is deceitful and so is God for having frauds in Heaven.
This reason implies that you should visit allegedly holier people on earth and
ask them to intercede for you. But that would be the sin of encouraging them to
be self-righteous. The Bible wants humility.
* Reason Three. It is simply easier to pray to God at times through a human
being than to pray straight.
Some declare that we should pray to the saints for it is easier to pray to human
beings. They say our prayers will be better and therefore more powerful.
Why is it easier? Because the saints know what life is like and God doesn’t?
This attitude denies the knowledge of God and that he became a man, Jesus
Christ, who understands us (Hebrews 4:15, 16). Praying for that reason is
hurting God. Moreover, the harder prayer is the more merit Catholics see in it
for it is a bigger sacrifice. It is effort God cares about. If it is hard for
you to pray, God is happier because all God wants from you is an effort to do
his will. Saint-worship shouldn’t be an excuse for retreating from God. God
having made you for himself would want you to come directly to him.
And if the saints do not pray for you until they are asked they are not much.
God is supposed to not care about the quality of your prayer or even how much
time you spend at prayer but cares only about the sincere effort to reach him.
To argue that our prayers are improved in quality by praying to the saints and
because more influential for that reason is to blaspheme God for a decent God is
as pleased with the prayer of an expert as he is the prayer of the sinner who
makes a sincere effort.
The claim that prayer is sometimes easier if you talk to a saint or angel rather
than God shows that the person is trying to fool God. It’s a case of, “God I
don’t trust you or want to be close to you. I’d rather the saint would deal with
you. You might be stupid enough to give me what I want though I do not trust
you.”
If prayer to the saints is about reaching God then why are you asking somebody
else to kick the ball into the goal for you when you can do it yourself? You
don't really want the goal. So it is with God.
The Catholic doctrine that prayer is merely raising the heart and mind to God in
submission to his will and pleasure suggests that praying to saints is
unnecessary. It suggests that it’s a hindrance.
* Reason Four. We can ask saints to pray for us when we are too busy to do it
ourselves.
That is just laziness for nobody is too busy to think about God and it is
superstition to take the saints for mugs. One quick prayer is as good as many so
there is no need for it. Such petitions would disgust the saints.
They will not reward them by doing what you ask. The Devil might for an evil
purpose.
It is a sin to ask for help when you mean, “God, thy will be done!” It would be
more rational and less selfish just to say what you mean or should mean.
Anybody that asks for help is not asking for God to do his own will but God’s.
If that is all God wants to hear then this eliminates all the reasons for
saint-worship. The saint is not going to petition God to assist you in passing
your driving test when all the saint does is ask God to do his own will. Why
pray to saints when they ask that all the time anyway?
Reason Five. To honour the saints is not to detract from the honour due to God
but to double it for God is being honoured in himself and in his work in his
saints. He is being honoured in his saints (page 17, The Great Means of
Salvation and of Perfection). We pray to the saints to double the honour prayer
offers to God. It is just another way of praying only to God. The saints have no
power of their own - they pray to God to help us with his power. We are accused
of dishonouring God by praying to the saints and calling for their intercession.
We would dishonour Him if we consulted the saints independently of God. But we
do not - we honour God by honouring them.
In honouring God you are honouring his perfect goodness which means you are
necessarily and automatically honouring him in his saints. You don’t have to
talk to the saints to honour this goodness or to honour it more. The silliness
of this reason implies that anybody that prays straight to God is insulting him.
You would need to pray to yourself to honour the goodness God does in you if
there were any validity in it!
It does not follow that praying to saints is needed to double your honour for
God. You should be able to honour him totally and to the hilt by praying to him
alone.
Asking the saint to get you a bike is pointless. If it is not God’s will even
the saint won’t get the bike for you. If your prayer for a bike is intended to
honour God it follows that the saint has to check if it is God's will for you to
have the bike. If it is then God has already decided you have the bike. So the
saint then is left with nothing to pray for. If he prays for the bike after God
has decided to give it then he is not praying but going through the motions. You
can't ask for something that you know you have been given.
Perhaps the saints are going to pray to God for the people but that does not
mean the saints should be prayed to or hear our prayers.
* Reason Six. God has decreed to answer some prayers only if a saint is invoked
to pray them for you or with you.
This would be arbitrary of God for he is well able to do without the saint
playing a part. But obviously, since God is allegedly boss he would only let the
saints influence him if he wanted to be influenced. The notion of a God who
knows all and who can do literally anything wanting to be influenced by
creatures is totally incoherent. At most he could only pretend to be influenced.
It is only imperfect beings that don’t know all that can be influenced.
Influence is trying to direct their attitude and improve their knowledge and
direct their thinking.
The Catholics believe the saints help them with their prayers. But it is really
God who helps and not the saints. So why pray to the saints then?
Why does it have to be a saint? God can choose Joe Soap.
Some Catholics admit that praying to saints would be blasphemy and make
creatures better than the creator if he is influenced by them but not if he
tells them he wants them to influence him to do things. But the absurdity in
this is in saying that God can be influenced when it is not the saint that
causes him to do what the saint asks but his own decision to listen to the saint
which was made before he was asked. In other words, when God gives the saints
the power to influence him what sense does it make to say that they truly
influence him? It is like somebody saying, “I gave Joan a watch and told her to
give it to me for my birthday. And she gave it to me as a gift.” It is not Joan
who gives the gift but you give it to yourself through her. So the Catholics
have failed to deal with the problem they admit would exist if saints could tell
God what to do.
The reason denies that the saints really intercede. Intercession is a person
trying to get God to do something for another but with this he has decided to
answer the prayer for an arbitrary reason and not really because he was asked
for it was him that decreed the asking would prompt him to act. To put it
another way, if I arbitrarily decide to give X a present if Y asks me to and I
tell Y to ask me to then it was not Y but me who got me to do it. There is no
intercession in that. It is crude silly play-acting. It is worse for God who
knows the saint is good and will ask him.
We conclude that because people want more than one god to pray to the Church had to bring in veneration of and invocation of the saints to please them and keep the finances healthy. The lies around the subject show that the Church is up to something.